Instead of the Freshman 15, it’s the COVID-19 Weight Gain!

Most of us have heard of the “Freshman 15″ many first-year college students dread as they begin the next part of their education. Now with the coronavirus pandemic, the “COVID-19 Weight Gain” (or “Quarantine 15”) is a new concern facing those trying to stay healthy and avoid any weight gain.

As the world attempts to curtail the COVID-19 pandemic, most of us are feeling increasingly stressed. And when a stressful situation of this magnitude arises, people often experience considerable changes to their eating behaviors. Generally described as emotional or stress eating, we often start to eat in a conscious or unconscious effort to suppress or soothe negative emotions.

More workplaces have required their employees to work remotely. Children are home from school. Having easy access to the refrigerator and pantry could prompt some of us to eat more than we would without a quarantine. Working from home and less time in other places has its perks – but for some, weight gain isn’t one of them.

How to Reduce the Likelihood of COVID-19 Weight Gain

Here are some suggestions on ways to not pack on extra pounds while safer-at-home in the upcoming weeks:

Stick to a schedule. Eat the way you would if you were in your workplace.

Make your “home office” and “home school” a no eating zone. If possible, separate where you eat from where you work and study.

Plan your snacks. Ahead of time (the night before or first thing in the morning) select them and put in containers for that day. Don’t eat from the cookie jar or chip bag.

Write it down. Keep a food diary so you can keep track of what you’re eating during the day. Discover problematic times and/or emotions that trigger eating.

Figure out what you’re feeling. Your food diary can help here. Are you really hungry – or stressed, tired, or bored? You may be eating to fill the void. If you’re tired, take a nap. If you’re stressed, take a break. If you’re bored, take a fitness break.

Get cookin’. Do your best to create balanced meals with what’s available. Aim for a generous portion of fruits/veggies (fresh, dried, frozen or canned- all OK), some protein, healthy fats, and quality carbs (starchy veggies like potatoes, sweet potatoes and butternut squash or whole grains). Search the web for healthy recipes.

Eat more umami-rich foods to help control how much you eat.

– Think about foods that are rich in the umami taste – cheeses, tomatoes, walnuts, shellfish, green tea, mushrooms, and peas, for example. Promising new research shows that umami-rich foods can help control appetite. And MSG, which is the purest taste of umami, can play a role. Specifically, Chinese take-out orders with MSG could help regulate how much you eat at that meal. For those of you who order wonton soup – a chicken soup that usually contains MSG – you might be interested in the results of this study(1). Subjects consumed chicken broth with or without MSG to see if this flavoring ingredient might alter their appetite. Subjects exhibited more control over their food intake and ate less saturated fat after ingesting the broth with the MSG than after consuming the non-MSG soup. The authors suggest that the glutamine (an amino acid that functions as a neurotransmitter in the brain) in monosodium glutamate may be responsible in part for the eating behavior seen in the study. And that could also translate to other Chinese entrees.

– Another paper reported on subjects consuming beef broth containing different amounts of MSG, and their food intake was measured about thirty minutes later.(2) After consuming the soup, subjects reported feeling full and not interested in eating.

Umami Delivers Great Taste without Caloric Cost

So, does MSG change your food intake? Maybe it can help. What is not in dispute is that the glutamate in MSG is the source of a taste called “umami”. Because umami was originally a Japanese term, it was thought to be a taste associated only with Asian foods, and not one detected by American taste buds. However, it has been now established as a fifth basic taste along with sweet, sour, bitter, and salty.

Umami and MSG could also induce us to eat foods that are healthy, but are avoided because their taste is dull. An article by Yamaguchi and Ninomiya points out that Western foods traditionally rely on high-fat components to deliver taste and carry the taste of other ingredients.(3) But, they point out, much pleasure in the taste of foods is also found in foods delivering that fifth taste – umami – and without the caloric cost.

Regardless of whether MSG makes us eat more or less, what it can do through the fifth taste sense, umami, is to bring more nutritional sense to our diet. Something many of us can use during this stressful time.

Recipe Notes

About
Althea Zanecosky, MS, RD, LDN

Althea is a registered dietitian/licensed nutritionist and an accomplished health education and communications professional. Althea has 30 years of experience delivering nutrition messages to university, professional, and worksite audiences. She served for 9 years as a national spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and has served as an adjunct professor of sports nutrition in the graduate school at Drexel University. Althea enjoys connecting the enjoyment of food with good nutrition. Read more about her background on the About page.

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